VietNamNet Bridge - With foreign postal service providers having undertaken their business expansion, many domestic portal companies have been rushing to apply for service licenses to grasp the domestic market shares.

The market is currently divided into two segments.

Foreign firms, including four major service delivery providers FedEx, TNT, DHL and UPS, thanks to their financial capacity and operation scale, have occupied a large segment of freight delivery services from abroad into Vietnam and vice versa.

Domestic carriage service market seems has been the playing field of domestic firms.

Foreign firms promote operations

Within the recent month, two out of four big delivery companies of the world have expanded their investments in Vietnam to increase scale of operation, serving a growing number of customers.

In early November, FedEx has opened a new air route offering direct flights from Hanoi to foreign countries to provide express delivery services. Previously, freights were delivered from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City before they were carried to other countries.

FedEx has been in Vietnam since 1994, and is currently the first courier company to own aircrafts, while other companies do not invest in private jets. FedEx's flights from Hanoi operate four days a week, from Tuesday to Friday, about ten flights made weekly.

Nguyen Duy Binh, director of the Indochina region of FedEx said the opening of direct route from Hanoi to abroad allows FedEx to shorten delivery time by a working day at the same service charges, adding that this is considered very important step to improve competitiveness and attract customers.

According to Binh, the delivery capacity of FedEx in Vietnam is currently 30 tons daily, a fivefold increase in the last seven years.

TNT, one of the world's leading express integrators, has also established an Operations Center located at ICD My Dinh Hanoi in late October 2010 with investment capital of about $1.5 million.

At three times of its original size, with over 100 employees, the Hanoi Operations Center is expected to handle up to 100 tons of goods a day. Hardy Diec, general director of TNT Vietnam said this center is part of the TNT's expansion plans to meet the increasing demand of freight transportation in and out of Vietnam, Hanoi in particular.

According to Diec, compared to 2008, when TNT Hanoi started operations, the demand for freight has grown by 20 percent.

The profile of goods increased over the years, from garment and textile, electronics, high tech products, health-care products, and automotive and industrial equipments.

The northern region of Vietnam has been growing strongly as a production center, particularly in the field of high technology, automotive and industrial equipment. This trend is leading to increasing demand for heavy freight transportation and that is the reason for TNT' operation expansion, he added.

Opportunities on domestic market

The excitement of postal service market is not only in international postal service segment. Domestic market has recently been rated as more prosperous when various express delivery companies applied for licenses in mail delivery service.

In recent months, there have been more than a dozen applications for these service licenses, 50 percent higher than the number of applications in the last few years.

Experts said that is due to companies having seen great attraction of this market.

Nguyen Van Tu, deputy general manager of Tin Thanh Courier Company, one of the first companies received licensed from Ministry of Information and Communications for mail delivery service in 2007 also shared the same point of view.

In an online interview, deputy minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Hung also said postal service would have many opportunities in the future.

Domestic postal market is not only exciting for the number of applications for license, but also heated by business plans of companies.

Viettel Post Company (ViettelPost) targets to obtain VND156 billion of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2010, up by nearly 26 percent compared to the third quarter. In addition, ViettelPost also plans to expand its network, raising coverage from 84.5 percent to 90 percent in the end of the year.

In order to increase market share and ensure the achievement of planned targets, measures that ViettelPost will focus in the future include building stimulus package for key markets; closely monitoring and evaluating performance of plan weekly and monthly; and supporting branches and units through daily online operating.

Hop Nhat Vietnam Group is also one of the postal delivery companies attracting a large number of customers. Revenue of this group in the first six months of 2010 was VND90 billion, expected to be over VND220 billion in the whole year, up by 27 percent compared to 2009.

In the near future, Hop Nhat will increase investment in infrastructure, information technology and senior staff.

Based on the policy to use information technology as a foundation to develop differentiated products, this group has invested five billion dong in the information technology system to cater for the deployment of express delivery service, distribution and logistics, in addition to restructuring the system, building appropriate mechanisms and policies to promote advantages to increase market share and competitiveness.

Source: TBKTSG/Tuoi Tre